I've been involved with woodworking since I was 6-7 years old, I'd help my dad with his work. He was a farmer not a cabinet maker. So he worked on the house or the barn. I took woodshop in High school and had a great teacher. I've been involved with mostly home improvement, and children's toys. I started selling craft items to pay for my "TOYS" I purchased 20,000 bd ft of hard rock maple for 2 cents a bd foot at a salvage yard. They must have had a million bd ft there. It came from a building that burned to the ground and all of this maple was in the basement. The story was it was used to make bowling pins or ladies high heel shoes. I made puzzles. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas my family didn't see me except at supper time. I got transferred, working on computers, lost the time for wood. I started back up about 7-8 years ago, made my wife's kitchen cabinets from Ambrosia Maple with a bowling alley counter top. It was shown in Wood Magazines e-mail as part of your most fantastic wood purchase. (That is another story by itself). Forced retired by being downsized for the second time, and decided to get out of the race. Enjoying life and trying to get into the shop at least every day.

-- I've been blessed with a father who liked to tinker in wood, and a wife who lets me tinker in wood. Southern Delaware soon moving to Virginia karsonwm@gmail.com †

in 2007 was the first International LumberJock Day. on that day Lumberjocks arrived at the 1000 registered Lumberjocks.
It has been celebrated on and off since them.
So happy International Day to all of the Lumberjocks world wide. For their ...

Well May 7th is my eighth anniversary being a member of lumberjocks.
Lots of changes from knowing everyone on the site and communicating with them each night. We didn’t have messages then we posted those messages on projects.
Lots of f...

Tomorrow February 26th is the eighth anniversary of LumberJocks.
Thanks to Martin and for his web page development skills, and for all of the users of this site who have continued to improve it through all of their contributions.
Have your s...

KarsonI’m still around, I just haven’t finished anything lately. I’ve got 3 or 4 projects started and plans to start a couple more soon. I guess I should finish what I’ve started before I start something else.

Thanks for dropping me a line awhile ago. Coincidentily the same day I received your comment at my profile I happened to realize the reason why a project highlighted in WoodCraft Magazine looked so familiar was because it was yours. The cradle/glider looked as beautiful in print as on the website. Congrats.

I stopped by your flickr site this morning and see you’ve been busy; new page, new mini workbench and then there’s that picture of “the table top for the LumberJocks/ Popular Woodworking challenge”....good show!

Never heard of Goncalo Alves before so I had to go and do some reading, truly a premium and prime specialty of hardwood that you have chosen to use.

And as you also show at the bottem of that page, keep those ‘shaving curls’ coming!GODSPEED,Frank

It’s MERGANSER - as in a kind of duck. It’s more of a play on words, though, because two of the most common types are the red breasted merganser and the hooded merganser. Per my red hair, I came up with Red Headed Merganser.

(You pick up little quirks like this when you’re wife is an avid bird watcher…)

Thanks for the tip using walnut on shaker boxes. I have a bunch of walnut that I could turn into boxes if I had a better band saw. I might try cutting some small ones with my table saw now that you mention I could use it.

Karson, I was going through my buddy list and realized I had not read any of the profiles of my buddies so I thought I’d get started. Yours is interesting. I too have closed a few plants in my time. 3 to be exact. One foundry and 2 drop forges. Hard hot work I never enjoyed. In between layoffs I’d always try to find a job doing carpentry work. I loved working outside, the feeling of accomplishment you got when you were done, not being black and greasy when you left work. But I could never afford my own tools to do the kind of wood working I wanted to do. Now I do and my back is so messed up it’s hard to enjoy sometimes. You sure are know ledgable about many things wood, computers, and gosh knows what else. After talking with you I found you an easy person to like and wish we lived closer, in fact, I wish that for a lot of us, we’ve gotten so close. Anyway I’m glad you’re my friend, any kudos I get from you are sincere, I know, and heartfelt, and I appreciate the advice I have gotten from you. Jockmike2

-- (You just have to please the man in the Mirror) Mike from Michigan -

Karson Thanks for the welcome I would have reponsed sooner but I have been buzy and my internet didn’t work very well. have since changed isp’s . Hopfully I can start paying more attension to lumber jocks now that it works. I own a hotel and needed to providefree wifi to the guests, been a real hassle getting it up and running, but finally have succeeded. Now I have to figuire out how to get pic loaded so I can show off some of my projects. I’ve got a lot of them in my lobby but my customers are to cheap. agin thanks well try and kecth you latter StevieD

thank you for welcoming me. I looked at your projects, very nice. I saw you made a rocking baby bed. I posted a question on the forum about a rocking horse. Maybe you have some valuable tips for me? Anyway, very nice work.

Hey Dad,
Your project is beautiful. You are an amazing woodworker. I am trying to think of a project that I can put on the website. But I did not inherit your woodworking genes. Does painting murals count?I love you bunches. R-